𝐈𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Perfect Stranger

The van pulled to a stop outside of our warehouse and everyone began to file out of their cars. I hopped out of the van last, closing the door behind me as I followed the rest of the group into the building and up the stairs. Without saying a word I brushed past Fed and Charlie who were stopped in front of me and I walked quietly towards the room I shared with Dylan, closing the door behind me.

I stared at the wall in front of me for the second hour in a row. I hadn't moved from my spot on the edge of the bed as my eyes bore into the flaking paint of the off-white wall before me. The rest of the group hadn't come into the room to check on me or bother me at all much to my relief, but I could hear their murmurs outside of the door and the occasional sound of feet shuffling. My stomach grumbled quietly but I ignored it, continuing to stare ahead.

I can't go outside. Not yet. I can't face Raine or the others without feeling myself fall even further down the pit of helplessness and despair I felt myself becoming buried in. It was my fault that he wasn't there. It was my fault that my family is practically in tatters and that Raine isn't able to be reunited with her brother. Danger and hurt have a deathly grip on me and refuse to let me escape or even just loosen it for a while. They stick to me like a shadow, so everyone around me, Raine, Charlie, Sam, Fed, and even Dylan and Jack, pay the price. And even my old friends back in Florida, because of me some of them were killed. It was my fault.

How many times have I put my friends and my sister in danger? How many times have I risked their lives? Because of me, they get hurt.

But if I went outside now, one look at Raine would cause me to slip into a spiral of emotions that frightened me even more than the emotions that I was feeling right now. I was scared to feel even more pain and guilt than I already felt. So I sat there, on the edge of the bed, my hands resting in my lap and my heavy eyes focused on the wall in front of me. My cheeks were stained with dried tears that I hadn't bothered to wash away and my hair clung to the sides of my face from sweat. My body was completely still despite the fact that my mind was racing at a million miles an hour and I felt like I was going to throw up. But I sat there, losing myself in the maze of my pain and unable to find the fight inside of me to find a way out.

Upon approaching her fourth hour of self-isolation, I felt it was time I moved. I could tell that almost everyone was asleep by the silence that filled our floor, only interrupted by the brush of wind every few minutes against the walls of the room. I finally stood up from the bed, my legs feeling weak from not using them in such a long time. I walked silently across the room to the door, carefully opening it before I stepped outside. Not bothering to look around, I walked towards the staircase that led up to the higher floors, taking the stairs two at a time and passing every floor until I reached the roof. I swung the door open and pulled the brick beside it to block it from closing all the way. Walking carefully to the edge, I plopped down and let my feet dangle off the six-story building as I stared at the sky.

I thought about the fall below me and if someone would die if they fell from this height. But I quickly lost interest in the subject and stopped thinking for a moment.

The cool wind whipped through my hair and started to blow the strands stuck to my face back behind me, making them gently tickle my shoulders. I felt cold and defenseless against the wind, my tank top and cargo pants barely doing enough to stop the shivers from crawling up my spine.

I heard the door behind me squeak open, but I didn't bother to turn to see who it was, not even when he sat down next to me, letting his feet dangle off the building with mine. We sat in a comfortable silence and stared at the world around us. The darkness seemed to wash over the sky and the city but didn't consume them completely as the faint glow of street lamps gave off just enough light for one to be able to make out only what was in front of us, but concealing everything that lied further and deeper into the darkness. The moon shone brightly on the deserted streets, illuminating the rubble that littered the ground.